Prof. Chilai Chen’s team developed the first deep-sea mass spectrometer of China and successfully tested at deep sea

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BEIJING ZHONGKE JOURNAL PUBLISING CO. LTD.

 

IMAGE: THE DEEP-SEA MASS SPECTROMETER USES 24 V DC POWER AND HAS AN AVERAGE POWER CONSUMPTION OF LESS THAN 60 W DURING OPERATION AND LESS THAN 10 W DURING STANDBY. ITS PHYSICAL SIZE IS Φ240 MM×1300 MM, WITH A CORE MASS OF 14.2 KG. THE DETECTABLE MASS RANGE IS 1–200 DA, WITH A MASS RESOLUTION OF LESS THAN 1 DA AND THE SCANNING TIME FOR A SINGLE MASS IS LESS THAN 15 MS. THE DETECTION LIMITS FOR DISSOLVED N2, O2, AR, AND CO2 UNDER ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE ARE 0.021 ΜG/L, 0.068 ΜG/L, 0.017 ΜG/L, AND 0.014 ΜG/L. THE DEEP-SEA MASS SPECTROMETER OPERATED CONTINUOUSLY AND STABLY FOR MORE THAN 8 H UNDER A SIMULATED WATER DEPTH OF 5800 M, AND IT ALSO ACHIEVED CONTINUOUS ONLINE DETECTION FOR 25.8 H IN THE SEA AREA OF −1388 M DEPTH IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA, OBTAINING DISSOLVED GAS CONCENTRATION-TIME AND DEPTH-CONCENTRATION CURVES. ART BY CHEN’S GROUP. view more 

CREDIT: BEIJING ZHONGKE JOURNAL PUBLISING CO. LTD.

The study is led by Prof. Chilai Chen (Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences).

 

The detection of dissolved gases in the deep sea is of great significance in exploring the origin and early evolution of life, understanding the interaction between the Earth's spheres, studying the geological profile of the Earth, searching for underwater oil, gas, and mineral resources, and researching global climate change. Changes in the concentrations of dissolved oxygen and nitrogen can indirectly or directly reflect the activity patterns of organisms such as plankton, phytoplankton, bacteria, and viruses in the deep sea. In situ detection of these changes is meaningful for studying biodiversity, especially in cold seeps and hydrothermal areas, which has special significance for the study of the origin of life. Typical greenhouse gases such as methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) are important factors causing global warming. In the deep sea, they usually diffuse into the surrounding area in the form of bubbles or fluids. In situ detection of the gases is important for studying biogeochemical cycles, marine environments, and global climate change. Additionally, methane (CH4) is an important indicator for the detection of natural gas resources on the seabed.

 

The traditional method for detecting dissolved gases in the deep sea is offline detection, which combines pressure sampling with laboratory analysis. This method has the advantages of high detection accuracy and simultaneously detecting multiple substances. However, it has limitations in time and spatial resolution, making it difficult to perform continuous analysis of the temporal and spatial distribution of substances. An effective means of addressing this issue is online detection technology. Currently, the main underwater dissolved gas online detection technologies include electrochemical sensors based on gas-sensitive materials, various spectrometers based on optical measurement methods, and underwater mass spectrometers based on mass analyzers. Amongst these, electrochemical sensors have the advantages of small size, low power consumption, low cost, and the potential for large-scale deployment, making them highly promising in the field of deep-sea detection. However, their extensive use still requires further shortening of equipment response time, expanding the concentration detection range, and improving their anti-interference capabilities. Spectrometers based on optical measurement methods have small size and rapid characteristics and have developed rapidly in recent years. They have been successfully applied to the online detection of dissolved methane, carbon dioxide, and their isotopes in the ocean. The development of this technology provides a technical means for the detection of dissolved gases in the deep sea. However, this technology needs to further expand the types of detectable substances, shorten the detection time, and further improve the sustainable working time in the future.

 

Mass spectrometry is an analytical technique that works under vacuum conditions and is based on separating ions for their mass-to-charge ratios. Due to its advantages of fast response, low detection limit, high specificity, simultaneous detection of multiple substances, strong anti-interference ability, and ability to provide a large amount of elemental, structural, and isotopic information of chemical substances, it has been widely used in fields such as food safety, biomedical, environmental protection, and ecological health. The application of mass spectrometry to the in-situ online detection of dissolved gases in the deep sea is an important advancement in marine chemistry research.

 

Since its inception, deep-sea mass spectrometry has undergone more than 30 years of development. The world's first deep-sea mass spectrometer, a gas chromatography-mass spectrometer, was developed by the Hamburg University of Technology in Germany in 1998, primarily used for cleaning up chemical pollutants at sea. However, due to its complex detection process, long detection time, large volume, and challenges in meeting the requirements of underwater in-situ analysis, the development of this technology has been relatively limited.

 

In 1999 and 2001, the research team at the University of South Florida successively unveiled the first-generation deep-sea mass spectrometry based on quadrupole mass analyzers and the second-generation underwater mass spectrometry (UMS) based on ion trap mass analyzers. In the following five years, the team carried out instrument optimization and shallow water online detection work. They conducted experiments in Bayboro Harbor, plotted the three-dimensional concentration distribution maps of toluene and dimethyl sulfide, and obtained time-concentration curves of dissolved gases such as benzene, carbon dioxide, and argon in Lake Maggiore. In 2007, the team moved to RSI Company to continue deep-sea mass spectrometry research and successively obtained depth-concentration curves of carbon dioxide, methane, ethanol, and propane in deep-sea cold springs, hydrothermal areas, and other regions. They also conducted research on marine oil spills and the total inorganic dissolved carbon in the seabed.

 

The MIT underwater mass spectrometry research team publicly released their UMS based on a cycloidal mass analyzer in 2002. This device has a power consumption of 20 W, a weight of 25 kg, a detection time of less than 5 s, and can detect a mass range of 1–200 amu, with a maximum operating depth of 25 m. In principle, this UMS uses a double-focusing method based on electric and magnetic fields and a vacuum system based on an ion pump, which greatly improves the volume and weight of the equipment. Over the next five years, the team carried out underwater experiments and online detection work in shallow water areas. They obtained methane concentration distribution maps in the range of 0–25 m deep in Lake Superior and dissolved oxygen, dissolved nitrogen, and dissolved argon concentration distribution maps in the range of 0–5 m deep in Boston Harbor. In 2007, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution developed a new underwater mass spectrometer based on the work of the MIT team. This device has a weight of 13 kg, a maximum depth of over 5000 m, a mass detection range of 1–200 amu, a mass resolution of less than 0.1 amu, and a response time of less than 5 s. Based on this underwater mass spectrometer, they obtained concentration distribution maps of dissolved oxygen (O2), methane (CH4), and carbon dioxide (CO2) in the depth range of 0–350 m. Subsequently, they conducted related research work such as deep-sea oil exploration, pipeline leaks, and atmospheric circulation.

 

Apart from the two main research branches mentioned above, other institutions such as the University of Hawaii, Harvard University, and the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany have also conducted research on underwater mass spectrometry. In 2005, engineers at the University of Hawaii's School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology publicly released their first underwater mass spectrometer, and subsequently carried out more systematic instrument optimization and deep-sea in-situ detection work. The Alfred Wegener Institute released its first underwater mass spectrometer in 2008 and conducted deep-sea in-situ detection work. Harvard University released its first underwater mass spectrometer in 2010 and subsequently conducted research on the origin and early evolution of life, inter-layer interactions, and global environmental changes.

 

The work of the above research teams has made important contributions to the characteristics of deep-sea cold seeps and hydrothermal regions, exploring the origin and early evolution of life, studying the geological overview of the earth, searching for seabed resources, evaluating oil and gas and mineral resource reserves, analyzing the harm of pollution to the marine ecosystem, and studying global environmental changes. Overall, the research on UMS is still in the exploratory stage, and there are still many challenges to overcome. Currently, relevant research focuses on improving detection accuracy, reducing volume, and power consumption to achieve long-term, stable, and accurate detection in the deep sea.

 

UMS is still in its early stages in China, and no public reports are currently available. Based on previous research on the development of conventional mass spectrometry and atmospheric pressure ion mobility spectrometry technology, this study conducted research on underwater mass spectrometry. A breakthrough was made in high-pressure injection technology for underwater mass spectrometry, and vacuum maintenance technology under high-pressure and low-temperature environments, as well as long-term unmanned self-control technology, were developed to realize the miniaturization of high-precision underwater mass spectrometry technology and achieve online high-precision detection of small molecules and volatile organic compounds in seawater.

 

See the article:

Development and application of an underwater mass spectrometer for in situ detection of deep-sea dissolved gases

 

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cjac.2023.100299

---

JOURNAL

Chinese Journal of Analytical Chemistry

DOI

10.1016/j.cjac.2023.100299 

ARTICLE TITLE

Development and application of an underwater mass spectrometer for in situ detection of deep-sea dissolved gases

Unlocking human-level capabilities: GPT-4 empowers data mining for building energy management

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KEAI COMMUNICATIONS CO., LTD.

 

IMAGE: HOW THE GPT-4 WORKS ON AUTOMATED DATA MINING FOR BUILDING ENERGY MANAGEMENT view more 

CREDIT: CHAOBO ZHANG, JIE LU, YANG ZHAO

The building sector is a significant contributor to global energy consumption, accounting for approximately 33% of the world's final energy usage. Recently, data mining technologies have showed powerful capacities for revealing energy waste and providing energy-saving tips to building owners. These technologies have the ability to save approximately 15%-30% of the energy consumed in buildings. However, the practical application of data mining technologies has been limited due to its labor-intensive nature, resulting in a scarcity of real-world use cases.

In a study published in the KeAi journal Energy and Built Environment, a collaborative team of researchers from China and the Netherlands has successfully developed a solution based on GPT-4. This innovative solution automates the analysis of building operational data, thereby providing comprehensive support for building energy management.

"The study's first author, Chaobo Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher in smart buildings at the Department of the Built Environment, Eindhoven University of Technology, highlights the necessity for tailored data mining solutions in building energy management due to the highly diverse nature of building energy systems.

"While GPT-4 stands as one of the most advanced large language models currently available, demonstrating remarkable human-level performance in various real-world scenarios such as coding, writing, and image generation, its ability to analyze building operational data using data mining tools at a comparable human-level performance remains uncertain. Exploring the potential of leveraging GPT-4 to replace humans in data mining-based building energy management tasks holds significant value and warrants further investigation.” Zhang explains.

The team successfully showcased GPT-4's capability to generate codes that forecast building energy loads, even when provided with limited user information. Furthermore, GPT-4 exhibits the ability to identify device faults and detect abnormal patterns in system operations by analyzing building operational data. When applied in real-world buildings, the codes generated by GPT-4 demonstrate a high level of accuracy in energy load prediction.

“Additionally, GPT-4 offers reliable and precise explanations for fault diagnosis and anomaly detection outcomes. By automating coding and data analysis tasks, GPT-4 effectively liberates humans from tedious work, resulting in a more accessible and cost-effective approach to data-guided building energy management,” adds Zhang.

This study represents a breakthrough in the domain of building energy management. "Automated data mining solutions are still rare for building energy management until now. Our study indicates that GPT-4 is a promising solution to enabling computers to implement customized data mining solutions for building energy management with limited assistance from human,” says Yang Zhao, a professor at Zhejiang University, and senior author of the study. "We hope more scientists can explore the potential of GPT-4 in this domain, so that the building energy management will be smarter and more efficient in the future."

###

Contact the author: Yang Zhao, Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, youngzhao@zju.edu.cn

The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 100 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

---

JOURNAL

Energy and Built Environment

DOI

10.1016/j.enbenv.2023.06.005 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Generative pre-trained transformers (GPT)-based automated data mining for building energy management: Advantages, limitations and the future

Scent dogs can detect COVID-19 more rapidly and accurately than current tests

Research review finds scent dogs can successfully sniff out COVID-19, including asymptomatic cases, new variants and long COVID 

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DE GRUYTER

 

IMAGE: (A) ILLUSTRATION OF THE THREE CUP SNIFFING EXPERIMENT WITH THE FIRST AUTHOR’S GREAT PYRENEES (PHOTO CREDIT: TODD DICKEY). (B) ONE OF THE SECOND AUTHOR’S COVID-19 SCENT DOGS SNIFFING A TEST CANISTER (PHOTO CREDIT: HEATHER JUNQUEIRA). (C) FLOWCHART ILLUSTRATING HOW VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS (VOCS) ARE SENSED AND PROCESSED BY DOGS AND ENOSES (FLOWCHART MODIFIED AFTER KARAKAYA ET AL., 2020, WITH PERMISSION). view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO CREDITS: (A) TODD DICKEY, (B) HEATHER JUNQUEIRA, (C) FLOWCHART MODIFIED AFTER KARAKAYA ET AL. WITH PERMISSION (KARAKAYA, D, ULUCAN, O, TURKAN, M. ELECTRONIC NOSE AND ITS APPLICATIONS: A SURVEY. INT J AUTOM COMPUT 2020;17:179-209. HTTPS//DOI:10.1007/S11633-019-1212-9).

Scent dogs may represent a cheaper, faster and more effective way to detect COVID-19, and could be a key tool in future pandemics, a new review of recent research suggests. The review, published in De Gruyter’s Journal of Osteopathic Medicine, found that scent dogs are as effective, or even more effective, than conventional COVID-19 tests such as RT-PCR.

Dogs possess up to 300 million olfactory cells, compared to just 5 or 6 million in humans, and use one-third of their brains to process scent information, compared with just 5% for humans. Dogs trained to recognize specific volatile organic compounds created in the body during disease have successfully identified patients with certain cancers, Parkinson’s and diabetes.

Prof. Tommy Dickey of the University of California, Santa Barbara and Heather Junqueira of BioScent Detection Dogs reviewed 29 studies where dogs were used to detect COVID-19. The studies were performed using over 31,000 samples by over 400 scientists from more than 30 countries using 19 different dog breeds. In some studies, the scent dogs sniffed people directly, sometimes in public places as a health screening. In others, the dogs sniffed patient samples such as sweat, saliva or urine samples.

In the majority of studies, the scent dogs demonstrated similar or better sensitivity and specificity than the current gold-standard RT-PCR tests or antigen tests. In one study, four of the dogs could detect the equivalent of less than 2.6 x 10−12 copies of viral RNA per milliliter. This is equivalent to detecting one drop of any odorous substance dissolved in ten and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools and is three orders of magnitude better than modern scientific instruments. 

The dogs could detect COVID-19 in symptomatic, pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic patients, along with new COVID variants and even long COVID. A major benefit of using the dogs was their speed – they could provide a result in seconds to minutes, and did not require expensive lab equipment or create mountains of plastic waste, unlike conventional diagnostic approaches.

“Although many people have heard about the exceptional abilities of dogs to help humans, their value to the medical field has been considered fascinating, but not ready for real-world medical use,” said Prof. Dickey. “Having conducted this review, we believe that scent dogs deserve their place as a serious diagnostic methodology that could be particularly useful during pandemics, potentially as part of rapid health screenings in public spaces. We are confident that scent dogs will be useful in detecting a wide variety of diseases in the future."

Prof. Dickey and Heather Junqueira added that they feel that the impressive international COVID scent dog research described in their paper, perhaps for the first time, demonstrates that medical scent dogs are ready for mainstream medical applications.

---

JOURNAL

Journal of Osteopathic Medicine

DOI

10.1515/jom-2023-0104 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

COVID-19 scent dog research highlights and synthesis during the pandemic of December 2019−April 2023

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

17-Jul-2023

COI STATEMENT

Heather Junqueira is the owner of BioScent, Inc.

A new way to browse interlinked biodiversity data: The Biodiversity Knowledge Hub is now online!

Business Announcement

PENSOFT PUBLISHERS

 

IMAGE: BKH IS A ONE-STOP PORTAL THAT ALLOWS USERS TO ACCESS FAIR AND INTERLINKED BIODIVERSITY DATA AND SERVICES IN A FEW CLICKS. VISIT AT: HTTPS://BIODIVERSITYKNOWLEDGEHUB.EU/. view more 

CREDIT: BICIKL PROJECT

The Horizon 2020 BiCIKL Project is proud to announce that the Biodiversity Knowledge Hub (BKH) is now online.

BKH is a one-stop portal that allows users to access FAIR and interlinked biodiversity data and services in a few clicks. BKH was designed to support a new emerging community of users over time and across the entire biodiversity research cycle providing its services to anybody, anywhere and anytime.

“The Knowledge Hub is the main product from our BiCIKL consortium, and we are delighted with the result! BKH can easily be seen as the beginning of the major shift in the way we search interlinked biodiversity information,”

says Prof. Lyubomir Penev, BiCIKL’s Project coordinator and Founder of Pensoft Publishers. 

“Biodiversity researchers, research infrastructures and publishers interested in fields ranging from taxonomy to ecology and bioinformatics can now freely use BKH as a compass to navigate the oceans of biodiversity data. BKH will do the linkages.”

 

“We have invested our best energies and resources in the development of BKH and the Fair Data Place (FDP), which is the beating heart of the portal,”

says Christos Arvanitidis, CEO of LifeWatch ERIC - “BKH has been designed to support a new emerging community of users across the entire biodiversity research cycle. Its purpose goes beyond the BiCIKL project itself: we are thrilled to say that BKH is meant to stay, aiming to reshape the way biodiversity knowledge is accessed and used.”

  

With its services, the Biodiversity Knowledge Hub is designed to support a new emerging community of users over time and across the entire biodiversity research cycle.

CREDIT

BiCIKL Project.

“The BKH outlines how users can navigate and access the linked data, tools and services of the infrastructures cooperating in BiCIKL,”

said Joe Miller, Executive Secretary of GBIF—the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

“By revealing how they harvest, liberate and reuse data, these increasingly integrated sources enable researchers in the natural sciences to move more seamlessly between specimens and material samples, genomic and metagenomic data, scientific literature, and taxonomic names and units.”

A training programme on how to best utilise the platform is currently being developed by the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF), Pensoft Publishers, Plazi, Meise Botanic Garden, EMBL's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), ELIXIR Hub, GBIF - the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, and LifeWatch ERIC and will be finalised in the coming months.

***

A detailed description of the BKH tools and services provided by its contributing organisations is available at: https://biodiversityknowledgehub.eu.

***

Find more information about the BiCIKL consortium partners on the project's website. 

Broad-scope plant science journal publishes focus issue on critical biosecurity gap

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN PHYTOPATHOLOGICAL SOCIETY

 

IMAGE: JOURNAL COVER OF THE PHYTOFRONTIERS FOCUS ISSUE ON DIAGNOSTIC ASSAY DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION. view more 

CREDIT: THE AMERICAN PHYTOPATHOLOGICAL SOCIETY

The vast scale of global trade presents a constant threat of introducing new plant diseases, which is challenging to the United States system of biosecurity. Plant health professionals often must respond quickly to a newly introduced or emerging plant disease outbreak even before a well-validated diagnostic test is available. Additionally, thousands of plant pathogens that already exist have been routinely diagnosed with assays that were not fully or consistently validated, which can lead to inaccurate diagnoses, delays in proper disease management, and significant consequences for growers and the public.

Growing awareness of this gap in coordination and resources for plant disease diagnostic assay development and validation inspired Kitty Cardwell—Director of the Institute for Biosecurity and Microbial Forensics at Oklahoma State University—and colleagues, in collaboration with The American Phytopathological Society (APS), to publish the focus issue “Diagnostic Assay Development and Validation: The Science of Getting It Right” in the journal PhytoFrontiers. This visionary and widely collaborative focus issue contains more than twenty-five open access articles addressing the need to harmonize plant health diagnostics within the U.S. agricultural biosecurity system.

The focus issue contains ten perspective articles and sixteen research articles. Many of the perspective articles are based on discussions among a large group of experts over several years supported by a USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture seed grant (NIFA 2020). Other perspective articles discuss the outcomes of VALITEST, a similar project funded by the European Union (EU) on diagnostic assay validation. The need and vision for developing the Diagnostic Assay Validation Network (DAVN) describes the goal of facilitating the accessibility and shareability of standard diagnostic method development and validation data/tools across institutions. Cardwell says that “outcomes of the DAVN will include more validated diagnostic assays, faster assay development time, and better coordination and communications across the continuum of plant health professionals and the industries they serve, as well as networked people, technology, and resources to protect agriculture, the environment, and trade.”

Six research articles discuss developing and validating high throughput screening (HTS) methods to detect and identify common plant pathogen taxa. Three of these papers demonstrate the development, validation, and use of e-probe diagnostic nucleic acid analysis (EDNA). Ten more research articles highlight the validation of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) plant disease diagnostic assay methods for common plant pathogen taxa. 

“Diagnostic Assay Development and Validation: The Science of Getting It Right” is the first focus issue from PhytoFrontiers, a relatively new journal published by APS. Editor-in-Chief Steve Klosterman remarks, "The publication of this focus issue is an amazing accomplishment for PhytoFrontiers—due to the number of articles and their overall quality. Clearly, there is a thirst for this topic.”

This focus issue aims to raise awareness about, and improve the discourse on, the importance of assay validation for diagnostic accuracy. Cardwell and the other focus issue guest editors (Carrie Harmon, Poonam Sharma, and James Stack) state that this focus issue should enhance the quality of diagnostic assays and increase the confidence in their use for the protection of U.S. agricultural, horticultural, and natural landscapes. As the United States strives to maintain important relationships with its global trading partners, a transparent, robust assay validation system with networked resources and experts will assure trade partners and increase confidence in U.S. production systems. The science of “getting it right” presented in this focus issue can facilitate the protection of plant health in the U.S. and abroad.

 

For additional details, read Focus Issue Articles on Diagnostic Assay Development and Validation: The Science of Getting It Right, published in Vol. 3, No. 1 / 2023 of PhytoFrontiers. All articles in this issue are free to read.

 

Learn more about DAVN by visiting https://www.apsnet.org/DAVN/Pages/default.aspx.

Follow this research network on Twitter

PhytoFrontiers @phytofrontiers

DAVN @the_davn

Carrie Harmon @flplantdr

Poonam Sharma @PoonamSharmaG

The American Phytopathological Society @plantdisease

 

About PhytoFrontiers™

Established in 2020 by The American Phytopathological Society, PhytoFrontiers is an interdisciplinary open-access journal publishing high-quality research covering basic to applied aspects of plant health. PhytoFrontiers also provides space for plant pathologists to publish negative results or results perceived as having no impact.

Visit https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/journal/phytofr to learn more.

---

DOI

10.1094/PHYTOFR-02-23-0014-FI 

ARTICLE TITLE

Focus Issue Articles on Diagnostic Assay Development and Validation: The Science of Getting It Right

Addressing adaptation inequalities in climate research

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

A new study proposes ways to better incorporate adaptation in climate change research, addressing the uneven distribution of adaptation capacities and needs worldwide.

Research on adaptation to the risks posed by climate change has witnessed significant growth in the past decade, with increasing recognition of its urgency in policy agendas at the international, national, and local levels. Adaptation needs and capacities are not evenly distributed worldwide, with countries in the Global South generally experiencing the highest challenges. Existing climate modeling tools, however, do not account for these differences in adaptive capacities, which may lead to an underestimation of the actual risks.

To help address this challenge, in a new IIASA-led study published in Nature Climate Change, researchers proposed ways to better incorporate adaptive capacity into the framework of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), a scenario set widely used by climate impact and integrated assessment modeling communities. SSPs describe alternative global development trajectories based on factors such as GDP, demographics, governance, and gender equality, and are able to characterize how well or ill-equipped a society is to cope with climate change.

“There has been previous work pointing at the need to better represent adaptation in climate models,” says Marina Andrijevic, a researcher in the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program and the lead author of the study. “In this study, for the first time we offer concrete ways to quantify adaptive capacity in climate research. Using the approach we are suggesting, our mainstream modeling tools can incorporate the idea that not all societies will be able to adapt to climate change.”

The researchers provide an overview on how adaptation is represented in conventional modeling tools and show that the SSP scenario framework can be leveraged to assess different categories of adaptation constraints and enablers. The study also offers guidance on model integration for assessing climate change risk and explores future research directions in global assessments used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“In our modeling efforts, adaptation must be regarded in the broader context of socioeconomic development with a focus on societal empowerment, not only in financial terms, but in the form of education, governance, and gender equality,” says Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, a researcher at Climate Analytics and a coauthor of the study.

The approach detailed in the study can accelerate ongoing efforts to improve the representation of adaptation, account for inequalities, and enable more precise risk estimates and reliable policy advice. To facilitate the integration of adaptive capacity in different research and policy agendas, the researchers also developed a data explorer, visualizing different global futures for indicators that can be used to assess adaptive capacity.

“A better integration of adaptation and adaptive capacity in quantitative risk modeling could show policymakers that we cannot take it for granted that adaptation will simply happen; stringent mitigation must remain the priority for climate risk reduction,” concludes Edward Byers, a researcher in the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program and a coauthor of the study.

The new framework will also be used in the IIASA-led SPARCCLE project on socioeconomic risks of climate change in Europe, that will start in September 2023. Along with 11 other partners across Europe, including the European Commission’s Joint Research Center, the €6.1 million project will develop new and integrated capacities to assess the risks of climate change and identify synergies between mitigation and adaptation actions.

Reference
Andrijevic, M., Schleussner, C., Cuaresma, J.C., Lissner, T., Muttarak, R., Riahi, K., Theokritoff, E., Thomas, A., van Maanen, N. and Byers, E. (2023). Towards scenario representation of adaptive capacity for global climate change assessments. Nature Climate Change. DOI: 10.1038/s41558-023-01725-1

 

About IIASA:
The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts research into the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. Our findings provide valuable options to policymakers to shape the future of our changing world. IIASA is independent and funded by prestigious research funding agencies in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. www.iiasa.ac.at

---

JOURNAL

Nature Climate Change

DOI

10.1038/s41558-023-01725-1 

ARTICLE TITLE

Towards scenario representation of adaptive capacity for global climate change assessments

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

17-Jul-2023

Do common methods for protecting bees from pesticides actually work?

Surprisingly few studies underpin most bee-protective measures, new analysis finds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

 

IMAGE: RESPONSIBLE USE OF PESTICIDES INCLUDES STRIVING TO AVOID NEGATIVE EFFECTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT, OFTEN WITH AN EMPHASIS ON PROTECTING BEES AND OTHER POLLINATORS. A NEW STUDY, HOWEVER, FINDS THAT MANY COMMON METHODS FOR MINIMIZING PESTICIDES’ IMPACT ON BEES—EVEN SOME RECOMMENDATIONS ON PRODUCT LABELS—ARE BACKED BY MINIMAL SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. THE RESEARCHERS BEHIND THE STUDY, PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY, SAY STRONGER TESTING IS NEEDED TO EVALUATE WHICH BEE-PROTECTION MEASURES ARE TRULY EFFECTIVE AND WHICH ONES MAY BE TOO RELIANT ON CONVENTIONAL WISDOM. MOREOVER, NEARLY ALL OF THE RESEARCH THAT HAS BEEN CONDUCTED ON THESE MEASURES HAS FOCUSED ON MANAGED HONEY BEES (LEFT) WHILE IGNORING WILD, NATIVE BEES SUCH AS BUMBLE BEES (RIGHT) AND OTHER POLLINATORS. view more 

CREDIT: (HONEY BEE PHOTO BY CHRIS EVANS, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS; BUMBLE BEE PHOTO BY DAVID CAPPAERT. BOTH PHOTOS VIA BUGWOOD.ORG)

Annapolis, MD; July 17, 2023—Responsible use of pesticides includes striving to avoid negative effects on the environment, often with an emphasis on protecting bees and other pollinators. A new study, however, finds that many common methods for minimizing pesticides' impact on bees—even some recommendations on product labels—are backed by minimal scientific evidence.

The researchers behind the study say stronger testing is needed to evaluate which bee-protection measures are truly effective and which ones may be too reliant on conventional wisdom. They share their analysis in a report published today in the Journal of Economic Entomology.

Growers are urged to follow a variety of "mitigation measures" meant to protect bees during pesticide applications, such as spraying at night, using specific nozzles on sprayers, or maintaining buffer zones.

"It takes time, money, and effort to follow these rules, so if they are not actually helpful, they are a waste of time," says Edward Straw, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Agriculture and Food Science at University College Dublin (UCD) in Ireland and lead author on the study. "If they are helpful, though, they could be applied more widely, to protect bees further."

Straw and colleague Dara Stanley, Ph.D., assistant professor in applied entomology at UCD, combed published, peer-reviewed research for studies that evaluated the effectiveness of any kind of mitigation measure in reducing a pesticide's impact on bees. Just 34 studies matched their criteria, spread across a wide range of measures—but largely focused on just one kind of bee.

"Almost all research was centered around protecting honey bees. However, honey bees are a managed species that is not endangered," Straw says. "When we try to protect bees, we really want to be protecting wild, unmanaged bee species, as these are the species which are in decline."

Few mitigation measures had more than one or two studies evaluating their effectiveness, and methods of testing varied. For instance, some studies tested for direct overspray while others tested for longer-term pesticide residues. And just three studies among Straw and Stanley's review evaluated measures frequently found on pesticide labels.

"Least researched was testing on how you time a pesticide spray, be that time of day or time of year," Straw says. "There's good reason to believe that if you change when you spray, you could avoid peaks in bee activity. Yet surprisingly no one has really researched if this idea works. This is odd, as it's a very common mitigation measure and not overly hard to test."

Other mitigation measures tested in existing studies included how pesticides are applied (e.g., spray parameters or planting methods for pesticide-coated seeds), buffer zones, removing flowering weeds before spraying, direct interventions for managed bees (e.g., moving or covering colonies), and applying pesticides only in certain weather conditions or during certain crop stages.

A newer method had the most studies (12) investigating its potential: repellent additives to pesticide sprays, which encourage bees to avoid a recently sprayed crop. Several compounds have shown promise in lab testing, but all 12 studies tested repellency for honey bees only, and none were tested in formulation with a pesticide—only on their own.

"It is an interesting idea, but it is not yet ready to be used," says Straw. "It would need to be tested on a diversity of bee and insect species, as if it is only repellent to one or two species, all the other bees would still be exposed to the pesticide."

In sum, Straw and Stanley say too much hinges on bee-protective measures for them to be weakly supported. Bees play a critical role in both natural ecosystems and agriculture, and the presumption that mitigation measures are effective can be factored into decisions to authorize pesticides for use. Rigorous scientific evaluation of these measures is imperative, they say.

"The main limitation is that these studies need to be big, well-funded pieces of research. To test changes to how a pesticide is applied to a crop, you need to have a crop, a pesticide sprayer, and someone licensed to spray. All of that is expensive and time consuming, making it out of reach for most scientists," says Straw.

But, if such research can be generated, there's reason to believe it will have immediate positive impacts. In related research Straw and Stanely published earlier this year, compliance with pesticide regulations and guidelines among farmers in an anonymous survey was high. "We know that these mitigation measures are being followed," says Straw. "We just do not know if they are helpful yet."

###

"Weak evidence base for bee protective pesticide mitigation measures" will be published online on July 17, 2023, in the Journal of Economic Entomology. Journalists may request advance copies of the article via the contact below or access the published paper after 10 a.m., July 17, 2023, at https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toad118.

CONTACT: Joe Rominiecki, jrominiecki@entsoc.org, 301-731-4535 x3009

ABOUT: ESA is the largest organization in the world serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and people in related disciplines. Founded in 1889, ESA today has more than 7,000 members affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government. Headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland, the Society stands ready as a non-partisan scientific and educational resource for all insect-related topics. For more information, visit www.entsoc.org.

The Journal of Economic Entomology publishes research on the economic significance of insects and is the most-cited journal in entomology. It includes sections on apiculture and social insects, insecticides, biological control, household and structural insects, crop protection, forest entomology, and more. For more information, visit https://academic.oup.com/jee, or visit www.insectscience.org to view the full portfolio of ESA journals and publications.

---

JOURNAL

Journal of Economic Entomology

DOI

10.1093/jee/toad118 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Weak evidence base for bee protective pesticide mitigation measures

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

17-Jul-2023